


i just want you for my own (what more can i do?)

by aceofdiamonds



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 13:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5377664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>nico gets drunk at the annual christmas party and lets out some things he's been keeping to himself</p>
<p>“It’s Christmas,” Percy concedes. “If now’s not the time for drunken love declarations screamed at parties then when is.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i just want you for my own (what more can i do?)

**Author's Note:**

> so for the last two years i’ve written a percy and nico thing centred around christmas and i haven’t really written much for them this year in general but i wanted to continue with this sort of tradition, so, this is some more christmassy love declarations with mariah carey providing the soundtrack as always.

 

Nico’s not the luckiest half-blood anyone is likely to meet. This is not necessarily any fault of his own and is perhaps hereditary, passed on from his father who also often feels as though he has been cast an unwanted hand, but that doesn't make it any less true. You would think, that with Christmas just around the corner, the gods and their bestowing of luck and goodwill would give Nico a break, throw him a book and a case of something sweet and give him the gift of a night alone, away from any possible traumas waiting to happen.

But no, this particular incident was all Nico’s fault. He brought this mess on himself, he can blame it on his notorious bad luck if that might make him feel any better, but luck has nothing to do with it, and so now he has to bear the consequences, however harsh they may be.

“Drawn the short straw, Nico?” Percy mumbles from the bed in the corner of the Camp Infirmary, rumbling awake from an ambrosia-induced doze.

“Something like that,” Nico replies, carefully lifting his feet off the rung of Percy’s bed where they’ve been perched for the last half hour. With Percy out cold and the Infirmary deserted, Nico’s been close to sleep himself, only his job of watching over Percy managing to keep his eyes from closing.

“What time’s it?”

“Twenty to twelve.”

“Midnight?” Percy runs a hand through his hair, wincing at the pull of his shoulder. When Nico nods he groans. “Fuck, did I sleep the whole day?”

Nico nods, own hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Piper wanted me to pass on the message that your heroics are great and all but next time leave it to the rest of them if you want your Christmas Eve back.”

Percy makes that same low sound in the back of his throat. “D’you agree?”

Here is where Nico shrugs, that perfect nonchalance. “It’s up to you how you choose to spend your time, Percy.”

“But?”

“But the Aphrodite cabin made snowman cookies earlier and thanks to your heroics you missed out,” and then he smirks because Nico four years after Gaea still isn’t _completely_ at ease around Percy but he’s almost almost there. He mostly knows what he’s doing.

Percy laughs, throwing an arm over his face and hissing when his hand falls onto a cut on his forehead. “That’s it. Next time a monster bursts into camp I’m leaving it to the rest of you. I took this Head Trainer job for the food perks -- no more sacrifices.”

Which Nico will believe when he sees it. He may not always want it but Percy is a born hero, he’s always going to be the one to push to the front of the monster-of-the-day, taking a knock to the head if that means his campers aren’t hurt. It’s not a _bad_ trait necessarily, this need to save everyone, but Nico doesn’t think Gaea was far off when she said it was fatal flaw -- it’s going to kill him one of these days.

“Anyway,” Percy is saying now, cheerfully moving away from more sombre topics and onto ones that are guaranteed to make Nico burn and squirm with embarrassment. They know each fairly well now, Nico and Percy, which is great most of the time but can sometimes end with Nico wishing he hadn’t told Percy anything about him at all. “I wasn’t the only one in the spotlight last night, Nico di Angelo.” He drawls out Nico’s name, smirk firmly in place by the end of it. “That was quite a speech you made.”

“I wouldn’t call it a speech,” Nico mumbles, ducking his chin into his chest.

“You’re right,” Percy agrees. ”Speech isn’t the right word for it. It was more like a declaration, a proclamation--”

Nico doesn’t need to sit here and take this. “Now you’re awake I’ll go see if Jason wants to visit,” but when he gets up to go Percy reaches out and grabs his wrist, stopping him.

“I’m sorry, Nico,” and when Nico turns back around to face him he sees that he’s being sincere, face open. “That was cruel. I’m sorry. Stay?”

So Nico sits back down because when is he going to say no to a Percy begging him to stay, that was the gist of his speech, declaration, _proclamation_ last night after all. “I was drunk,” he mutters, leaping to that overused excuse. “I didn’t mean any of it.”

He tilts his face up from his lap to watch Percy’s reaction to that. He doesn’t get much. He waits for a beat longer and then Percy sighs, opens his mouth to speak, closes it again.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Nico says after several repeats of this production. “I’m sorry I embarrassed you, Percy, alright? I would’ve been gone by now but Chiron asked me --”

But Percy is shaking his head like that’s wrong too. “Hey, Nico, calm down.” He reaches out to tap Nico’s wrist, touch light before it’s gone again. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“You just made your feelings pretty clear about what you thought of it,” Nico argues, leaning forward in his seat as he defends himself.

“I wouldn’t say those things if I wasn’t invested in finding out if you really meant them or not,” Percy says, voice soft. In the years since the battle and Tartarus if Nico has slowly been coming out of his shell, becoming a little louder, Percy has been softening, quietening, still loud and always up for a fight, but content with sitting by himself some nights.

“Oh, well, I would still say I was drunk,” which isn’t a confession or a denial at all.  

“And if I told you I want the same things you said you do?” Percy asks, shuffling into a more upright position.

“I would say you're a sick man doped up on a ton of ambrosia?” Nico replies, his chair swinging back onto its back two legs. Over the last four years since the battle with Gaea he's learned a lot, mainly how to keep things to yourself without appearing as a closed-off weirdo. This casual front he's trying isn't great but it's not him lurching forward to kiss Percy so it's a lot better than he might have been four years ago, or last night, for that matter.

“Not even the strongest drugs could make me forget your speech, Nico,” Percy says, leaning forward with a grin that makes his eyes shine.

“Not even getting knocked out by a minotaur seconds later?” Nico says, half hopefully.

Percy laughs. “Not even a concussion and three broken ribs can keep me from this conversation. Wild horses, man.”

Because of course this whole situation stems from the extremely strong alcohol supplied by the Stolls for the annual Christmas party last night. Nico wasn’t even supposed to have been there, he was all set for going down to the Underworld to spend the next few days with his dad, Persephone, and Bianca, if he could find her, but Jason had pleaded and slipped in a couple of thinly-veiled guilt trips and Nico had dutifully returned. And so inevitably the rush of emotions at seeing Percy for the first time in a few weeks paired with the fact that he was drinking steadily on an empty stomach had lead him to voice all of the emotions, very loudly and publicly, in front of almost everyone he knows. And Nico doesn’t do things halfway so obviously this rambling, shouty, declaration was followed by a clumsy attempt to either kiss Percy or pull him into a dance, no one’s exactly sure of the details. Honestly, he’s never been so thankful to see the minotaur that crashed the party before he could do much more than wink messily at Percy and shakily lean in.

The ensuing fight with the beast had been tampered with alcohol and spirits caught unawares. Percy had lead the fight but, although an extremely skilled fighter, he had been just off balance with the alcohol he’d been drinking all night and, the end up of it was, he was knocked out just as Aiden from the Hephaestus cabin helped him destroy the minotaur and the night descended into further carnage.

It being Christmas Eve and all, Chiron thought it unfair to leave Percy alone all day in an otherwise unoccupied Infirmary now that most of the camp members had left for Christmas, and so had asked those closest to Percy to take it in turns sitting with him for company. Nico is one of those people even though frankly, raging love and lust and whatever else aside, he would rather be anywhere in the world but here. But, maybe not, actually, with the way the conversation is slowly twisting out of shape and morphing itself into an outcome Nico has never dared consider.

(No, _of course_ he’s considered it. He’s had the fantasies and the dreams, the ones that had him jerked from his sleep, hot and sticky, and he’s had the nights out in different cities where he had sipped his ambrosia-laced vodka to give him that liquid courage he needed before he had dragged in boys with dark hair and green eyes and let them press him up against the wall, another face in his mind when he had closed his eyes tight. He’s thought about it a lot, alright, but he’s also had other things to do, other important things concerning the dead, and so he’s never allowed his brain to that one step further and imagine what would happen if Percy said he wanted the same things that he does.)

He laughs, a shaky sort of sound that is as telling as the trembling of his fingers in his lap. “So I should’ve gotten drunk and yelled at you in front of everyone a long time ago, is that what you’re saying?"

“Yeah, Nico, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” Percy smiles, one warm and real enough that Nico smiles back. Smiling more is something that’s been happening, too, recently. “Or, you know, you could’ve just said to me.”

“Where’s the drama in that?” When Percy laughs he takes a chance and slides his chair a couple of inches closer to the bed. There’s really no need for Percy to be lying in a hospital bed, the ambrosia has done all it needs to do by this point, but Chiron has been adamant over the new 24 hour aftercare rule and who better to set an example than the half-blood most likely to be in the Infirmary.

“It’s Christmas,” Percy concedes. “If now’s not the time for drunken love declarations screamed at parties then when is.”

“You're making it sound so much more than it is,” Nico groans, falling into that wonderful groove with Percy that they've been hitting more and more recently. Maybe that's what pushed him to finally say something about how much he enjoys these times, the way they can talk to each other, fight with each other, know that they have so many similar yet different experiences that have brought them to where they are. Before he had always felt below Percy, angry at him for Bianca, guilty for the River of Styx, sad for all these feelings he kept locked inside, but over the last year or so he’s really come to feel as though he’s Percy’s equal, no more fawning over and kicking off tantrums, just someone who happens to have very strong feelings for a guy a couple of years older than him. Yeah. That’s what pushed him to say what he did last night. He just needed the opportunity.

Percy’s head is tilted as he looks at him, considering. “Hey, Nico, c’mere.”

Nico pauses for half a second and then he’s leaning out of his chair and into Percy’s space and then Percy is kissing him or he’s kissing Percy, it doesn’t really matter, all that does is how nice it feels to have Percy’s mouth on his, how right it feels, and how it’s not underwhelming, or overwhelming for that matter, after being built up in his head for so long. It’s slow and it’s easy and Nico couldn’t have asked for anything more.

“I’m really glad you said what you did,” Percy murmurs when the kiss comes to an end. Nico stays where he is, sort of hovering beside Percy’s bed, and allows his forehead to rest upon Percy’s. “I’m so glad you did that.”

“I am too,” Nico replies, voice low as though if he speaks any louder he’ll ruin whatever's happening here. But he doesn’t have to worry -- he’s waited long enough for this, he’s allowed to let it last, the gods will give him that, if they can. He glances down at his watch, watching it tick past midnight before his eyes flick back up to meet Percy’s with a grin that Percy leans in to kiss quickly, both of them giddy with the thoughts of there this will go. “Merry Christmas, Percy.”

“So you’re my present?” Percy laughs. “Is that it?”

“Just good timing,” Nico replies. “Move over. That chair’s brick hard.”

The bed’s tiny, hardly big enough for one tall halfblood never mind two, but with a lot of jostling and wincing they make it work. Nico curls his legs up beside Percy’s, head dropping to the pillow beside his head. When he turns his face towards Percy he catches Percy staring back at him, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a tiny smile like he can’t believe his luck.

Nico knows the feeling. Maybe his luck is changing, his wheel spinning around to the top after such a long time at the bottom, or maybe this was all his own doing, maybe all he really did need to do was drink half a bottle of vodka and pour out his heart for half the camp to hear. Whatever it is, it worked.


End file.
